Building owners or managers who operate air conditioning systems have a statutory obligation and duty of care under the 2003 European Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in respect of the operation and maintenance of their system.
The Directive requires all air conditioning systems (domestic, commercial and public) to be inspected by an accredited Energy Assessor with the aim of improving efficiency and reducing electricity consumption, operating costs and carbon emissions.
Local Authority trading standards officers are responsible for enforcing the requirements and they have the authority to issue fixed penalty charge notices for non-compliance (currently £300 per offence).
Systems with a total effective rated output greater than 250Kw must be inspected immediately (the deadline for compliance was January 2009) and those with a total effective rated output greater than 12Kw must be inspected by 4th January 2011 (a single average cartridge AC unit = 5Kw).
The inspections and resulting reports must be CLG (Communities and Local Government) and CIBSE TM44 compliant and undertaken every 5 years. Reports should ideally be uploaded to the Governments ‘Landmark' database.
There are several potential benefits to the air conditioning operator in completing this statutory inspection:
Compliance at Local Authority inspections and avoidance of fines
ISO14001 / other environmental standards compliance
Improved energy rating for the building
Reduced energy bills
Certification will be required for property sale / transfer in the future
The ‘responsible person' is duty bound to arrange for the inspection to be carried out and they are defined as the individual who controls the technical functioning of the air conditioning system (rather than a user who may alter the temperature). Â
The EPBD regulations define an air conditioning ‘system' as all component parts of the system in a building where they are controlled by a single person. So effectively a single property may be made up of several air conditioning systems where there are multiple responsible people. In such cases, a separate report would be required for each system.
Reports are not required for refrigeration provided for process or other functions that do not relate to human comfort (for example a building that houses computer servers but no people).
The Directive requires all air conditioning systems (domestic, commercial and public) to be inspected by an accredited Energy Assessor with the aim of improving efficiency and reducing electricity consumption, operating costs and carbon emissions.
Local Authority trading standards officers are responsible for enforcing the requirements and they have the authority to issue fixed penalty charge notices for non-compliance (currently £300 per offence).
Systems with a total effective rated output greater than 250Kw must be inspected immediately (the deadline for compliance was January 2009) and those with a total effective rated output greater than 12Kw must be inspected by 4th January 2011 (a single average cartridge AC unit = 5Kw).
The inspections and resulting reports must be CLG (Communities and Local Government) and CIBSE TM44 compliant and undertaken every 5 years. Reports should ideally be uploaded to the Governments ‘Landmark' database.
There are several potential benefits to the air conditioning operator in completing this statutory inspection:
Compliance at Local Authority inspections and avoidance of fines
ISO14001 / other environmental standards compliance
Improved energy rating for the building
Reduced energy bills
Certification will be required for property sale / transfer in the future
The ‘responsible person' is duty bound to arrange for the inspection to be carried out and they are defined as the individual who controls the technical functioning of the air conditioning system (rather than a user who may alter the temperature). Â
The EPBD regulations define an air conditioning ‘system' as all component parts of the system in a building where they are controlled by a single person. So effectively a single property may be made up of several air conditioning systems where there are multiple responsible people. In such cases, a separate report would be required for each system.
Reports are not required for refrigeration provided for process or other functions that do not relate to human comfort (for example a building that houses computer servers but no people).
Source...